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User: alba7

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  1. Re:They solved the frame problem? on Strong AI and the Imminent Revolution In Robotics · · Score: 2

    Well, the fascinating thing about human "anxiety" is that it scales. If you replace the time bomb with an ordinary cup of coffee then humans will be anxious about spilling the coffee. If, instead, you set up a scenario of certain death (think of movies like "Crank" or "Die Hard") then humans will think about crazy uses for the time bomb. This situational awareness is incredibly hard to reproduce algorithmically.

  2. Re:Why is this even an issue? on Women's Enrollment In Computer Science Correlates Negatively With Net Access · · Score: 1

    Blame? really? Last time I checked, people have a free choice as to what field they want to work/study in. If women choose not to do CS then its entirely their choice. No one is to blame.

    Spoken like the ignorant white middle class male you most likely are. Last time you checked? That would be never, you're not paying any fucking attention.

    I've heard the same thing at the office from various women, you aren't going to attract quality workers to a field by overselling it or forcing them into it.

    What? You did hear from various women that they would have liked to pick CS but were driven off by sexism? Wow.

    Cause me experience is different. No feminist would ever admit that studying political sciences, philosophy, or gender studies was not her one and only wish. It's always the other women who made the wrong choice (under force), but never themselves.

  3. Re:Functional languages - whats the point? on Erlang and OpenFlow Together At Last · · Score: 2

    Of course there is nothing really stopping you from writing functional code in any language. It's just that notationally, functional languages make it much easier. In the same way, you could write object oriented code in any language, but the verbosity would negate it's usefulness.

    By definition, functional languages require complex, structured return types. Typically implementations use nested lists (where items are referenced by position) or nested hashes (where items are referenced by name). It's not hard to implement these data structures in simple languages like C, but as you said, the verbosity would negate it's usefulness.

    But anyway, the problems with functional ideoms only start at this point. To take a made-up example in Perl syntax:

    sub foo($) {
    return $_[0] == 1
    ? { key => +1, value => bar() }
    : { key => -1, value => baz() };
    }

    What is the return type of foo? Without looking at the implementation of bar and baz you cannot tell. Functional languages make it very hard to separate interface and implementation. It takes a lot of support by the run-time systems and development tools to make up for it.

  4. Re:Not smart Enough? on Scientists Say People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy To Flourish · · Score: 1

    OK.
    How old are the people that trust Fox News more than anything else?
    How old are the people that vote for candidates because they claim to be born again?
    How old are the people that believe that earth was created 6000 years ago?

    Looking things up on Wikipedia is a tremendous improvement.
    Or in other words: there is really not much the Baby Boomers can be proud of.

  5. Re:So says the religious guy. on Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science' · · Score: 1

    Being an atheist requires the same amount of faith as being a Christian, Muslim, etc.

    • Christian: I we follow the rules stated in the Bible then we will be saved in afterlife.
    • Muslim: If we follow the rules stated in Koran then we will have a paradisiac afterlife.
    • Atheist: Come on guys, your rules make no sense.

    You must be really braindead to think that rejecting rules is the same as imposing rules.

  6. Re:So says the religious guy. on Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science' · · Score: 1

    In a sense, no amount of Scotland yard's science can catch Moriarity, only Holmes' science.

    Your analogy is subtly flawed. Catching Moriarity would be equivalent to overpowering God. That's Voodoo or Satanism, but not science.

    Also, the purely theoretical question "Is there some evil genius calling himself Moriarity" is just that: purely theoretical.

    The real issue is whether some specific, observable crime was caused by this evil genius, or not.

  7. Re:Math is hard on New Study Concludes Math Gender Gap Is Cultural, Not Biological · · Score: 1

    Searching exotic places for exceptional behavior to prove that a rule is not a rule (since you found an exception) is not very convincing. Where are all these nerdy girls, whose existence refutes our prejudices? Why are there almost no female programmers involved in open source projects?

  8. Re:I hear... on Fix For Apache DoS Bug In the Pipes · · Score: 1

    According to http://marc.info/?l=apache-httpd-dev&m=131418828705324&w=2 the correct syntax is:
    RequestHeader unset Range

  9. Re:Don't underestimate the energy of small asteroi on Asteroid To Pass Near Earth On Monday · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quoting the fine article: "But there's no chance that the asteroid will hit Earth on this approach, and almost no risk at its next close approach, in 2022. If the asteroid did strike, it would probably explode in the upper atmosphere — a fine spectacle, but harmless."

  10. Re:Should we worry? on Asteroid To Pass Near Earth On Monday · · Score: 1

    It's a bit large to merely be cosmic lint, isn't it?

  11. Re:Should we worry? on Asteroid To Pass Near Earth On Monday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The opening paragraph of the fine article: Asteroid 2011 MD, a chunk of rock estimated to be 25 to 55 feet (8 to 18 m) across, [...]

  12. Western Europe is crowded, fragmented on Europe Plans To Ban Petrol Cars From Cities By 2050 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    and too far in the north.
    In other words, a rather bad place to live and do agriculture.
    But then this permanent disadvantage has become our strength.
    We have to do things right, because we don't have the space for "badlands".
    We have to do things efficient, because we don't have resources to waste.
    And while cultural diversity makes trade difficult, it also serves as a constant reminder that there is more than one way to do it.

    In the long run the economy flourishes when it has to overcome challenges.
    European cars are superior because fuel is expensive.
    American cars are crap, because GM has no ambition.

  13. Re:well then good on Why Eric Schmidt Left As CEO of Google? · · Score: 1

    Cts was first to leave kuro5hin forever, though.

  14. cts, what happened to you? on Chinese Intellectual Property Acquisition Tactics Exposed · · Score: 1

    You were once a devoted advocate for the military dissemination of freedom, democracy and the american way of life.

    Now you seem to have lost all faith in the military–industrial complex.

    Also, you left kuro5hin for good.

    What's happened?

  15. Re:Erste Gepotsung! on German Military Braces For Peak Oil · · Score: 1

    http://dict.leo.org/ende?lang=de&search=Whoosh

    While the verbs "rauschen" and "zischen" have similar onomatopoeic qualities, the meme as such is unknown. I am sorry, but this is yet another running gag that is not translatable.

  16. Re:as price(labour) goes to zero... on Inside the Mechanical Turk Sweatshop · · Score: 1

    Bullshit.

    Just have a look at Europe's history.
    The collapse of Western Rome due to an invasion of migrants.
    A few centuries of relative peace (the so called dark ages), when the pristine forests of northern and eastern were settled.
    Followed by a millennium of non-stop war.
    The crusades, the Reconquista, the Hundred Years' War, the conquest of the Americas, colonization of Africa, India and South East Asia, the age of Imperialism, all culminating in two world wars.

    Yes, Europeans got the wiser. Yes, that indeed stopped a millennium of wars. However, it did not actually prevent these wars.

  17. Re:as price(labour) goes to zero... on Inside the Mechanical Turk Sweatshop · · Score: 1

    Unchecked population growth exhausts resources in short time.
    This is the base of Darwin's thoughts.

    Perhaps famine and pestilence will kick in to correct the insane birth rate of third world.
    If not, we will see a new age of all-out wars.

  18. Re:Liquid nitrogen? on Germany To Test Actively-Cooled Spacecraft · · Score: 1

    In general, air consists of molecular Nitrogen (N2) with a volume count of 78%. To extract it you just need to cool the air until the Nitrogen liquefies. This process was discovered in the 19th century and is the base of inorganic chemistry.

  19. Re:Not much has changed on Women Dropping Out of IT · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Determining and remembering eye color is a thing only women do.
    And it has nothing to do with an alleged obsession of tits or hips.
    Just ask your male colleges what eye color their mothers have.

  20. Re:LOL on 9/11 Made Us Safer, Says Bruce Schneier · · Score: 1

    9/11 was orchestrated by a group that was gaining safe harbor in Afghanistan. When we demanded the safe harbor to stop, we were told to go take a hike. [...] that is almost the same things as sending your military to destroy the twin towers [...]

    On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, fell victim to a terrorist act performed by Bosnian Serbs. Some of them managed to escape to Serbia. When Austria requested them to be extradited, they were told "to go take a hike."

    What can we learn from this historical excursion?
    - Unlike Serbia, Afghanistan had no friends. Too bad.
    - Might makes right. Especially in the US.

  21. Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS on The End of the PC Era and Apple's Plan To Survive · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
    # The dogcow, also known as Clarus the Dogcow, is a bitmapped image first introduced by Apple. [...]

  22. Re:Graduate Record Exam on Computers To Mark English Essays · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In the German speaking countries many variations of this pastry are known. And they go by a lot of different names. For example in Austria we call it "Krapfen", and the people of Berlin call it "Pfannkuchen".

    Only recently, through the cultural influence of the US (e.g. McDonalds and Starbucks) the name Berliner was introduced to a wider audience and is now known as an American pastry.

  23. Re:Dvorak and MS-DOS on Dvorak Layout Claimed Not Superior To QWERTY · · Score: 1

    MS-DOS 1.0 was faithful port of CP/M to the 8088 and ran in 16 kiB of RAM.

    MS-DOS 2.0 brought in ambitious concepts from Unix, e.g. directories or the ability the open more then two files at once.

    These machines were very slow. Accessing hardware directly was standard operating procedure.
    Actually the hardware standard of the IBM-PC, which greatly simplified direct access, was seen as an advantage to the zoo of CP/M.

  24. Re:Dvorak and MS-DOS on Dvorak Layout Claimed Not Superior To QWERTY · · Score: 1

    In 1981 the industry standard was CP/M.
    PC-DOS was no worse and promised two improvements.

    The IBM-PC had a 16-bit CPU and could address up to 1024 kiB of memory, as opposed to the 64 kiB of the typical CP/M machine.

    And then CP/M did not standardize the hardware.
    There was a maze of incompatible floppy formats and screen drivers.

  25. glibc calls setuid(2) on New Approach To Malware Modifies Linux Kernel · · Score: 1

    So what can you say about programs using glibc? What if innocent functions like fopen(3) call setuid(2)? What if they do it only after an update of glibc?